"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." Hunter S. Thompson

Isaac Seal

I Like It When The Red Water Comes Out

A coal plant assembles blots of scudding smudge on the palate of the sky. Dawn dapples horizon hued interaction, turns taste on its' tympany. Sulfuric excreta bears a lightness like no other. People everywhere are opening their eyes; considering mortgages, soccer practice for the kids, juggling an affair with the aforementioned- It's easy to see how they wake up tired.

Somewhere to the southeast, jets roar in and out of that mouth of sky. Grinning tarmac braces chomp fossil fueled commerce, gleam hot black utility. A long line of people who aren't terrorists comply, take their shoes off to leave here or go there. It has to be some kind of a joke. It has to be. We light the last of the prayer candles in a vigil of days. Empty days, sawdust-filled-dummy days. Our Lady of Fatima shimmers, twitches, speckles hope onto the despair of our ceiling. Someone else's floor.

An indeterminable amount of hours pass. Sickness, delirium- Maybe you came and went. Maybe more than once. At least once. There's a signature pile of half-smoked Marlboro Lights begging to be ash cramped in a ceramic eyesore a foot from my head. I know you were watching me writhe. I get a grim satisfaction from that. My sweat wasn't alone. Maybe you cried again. But probably not. I stagger up, leaning into the peeling plaster for support. It crumbles a little in my fingers. Just like everything. I sit back down, and begin to smoke your butts. One after the other after the other.

Out the cracked window, I peek- I heard the dull groan of a city bus at the corner of 35th street. I need you to be getting off of it. You're not. I go back to my half starved crouch under the window, and begin to search under the radiator. I already know there's nothing there, but if I seek long enough, you may come home and save me. Like all games, this too will get old. The sky begins to grumble back at the dawn. Rain and snow together whisper their vespers into my eaves. It can't be long now. You never appreciate the weather.

I hear your tiny footsteps in the entry a floor down. I know you've come. I've smoked all the butts. Fatima winks at me as the shadows grow in competition with the lengthening angle of the rising sun. You're always so quiet, you always pause at the door before secreting the key into its' brass rictus. I will feign sleep. You come and sit beside me. I open my eyes to the smell of tan vinegar, the sound of click and sizzle, fresh points in a crisply folded brown paper bag from a gray faced building down Wisconsin avenue. As the sky clears, my mouth begins to water.

Welcome to Paraphernalia

This is Paraphernalia Quarterly. If you've made it this far, chances are you know what you've gotten yourself into. This is the rogue's gallery, a place where there is honor among thieves and where the alias is an art form. Within you'll find poetry and prose from back-room card games and back-alley knife-fights, tales of misadventure and odes to girls-gone-wrong. This is a place where street-credit is more important than store-credit, where black-market entrepreneur is a viable occupation. Fights may break out, court dates may be ignored. Good times will be had. If this is what you've come looking for, sit down and pack a bowl. We've got stories to tell.